Opposing Views
by Katra Winner
Summary: Inuyasha chases after a girl who looks like a mixture of Kagome and Kikyou, and hears some startling revalations. PG-13 for his potty-mouth. R/R, please~!


{ opposing views }   
  
{ by katra winner and relina peacecraft }   
  
~*~*~*~   
  
Inuyasha sat up in a tree next to the well. He was eating some sort of fruit, and he really couldn't care what kind it was. Not in the least.   
  
Waiting for Kagome was the name of the game here, and whatever happened to intrude in that was   
either pointless, or had a death wish.   
  
Then, suddenly, something caught his attention. A girl that looked like an odd mixture of Kikyou and Kagome was running like the hounds of hell were on her heels for the well.   
  
Curiosity aroused, Inuyasha jumped from the tree, abandoning the nameless fruit. Following her,   
he jumped into the well, feeling the somewhat familiar sensation of nothingness and floating as   
he passed between worlds.   
  
But this time, it was different. This time, he didn't suddenly hit solid ground. Well, he did,   
but it wasn't the sort of solid ground he was expecting. For one thing, it wasn't dirt. It was   
some sort of blue...thing.   
  
And standing not ten feet in front of him was that girl. She was wearing a bright blue yukata that set off her deep hazel eyes, that seemed to randomly shift to gray-blue, then back again.   
  
Freaky creature.   
  
The girl said in a low voice, different from Kagome, and different from Kikyou, "Inuyasha, I presume?"   
  
"Yeah, what of it?"   
  
"Good! I need to speak with you, and you with me. Sit down." the girl gestured, and two pillows appeared out of nowhere, blue to match the scenery. Apparently this girl had a thing for blue.   
  
Inuyasha let out a soft "Keh!", but sat down anyway, his clawed hand drifting to Tetsusaiga's hilt.   
  
"Okay. Let's start out nice and simple. Who do I remind you of?"   
  
Inuyasha scowled. "Why shoud I bother answering you? Who the fuck are you, anyhow?"   
  
The girl rolled her eyes. "Did you ever wonder, Inuyasha, if there was an incarnation between Kikyou and Kagome? I suppose not." Inuyasha snorted.   
  
"I really don't care. Are you trying to tell me your Kagome's directly previous incarnation, not Kikyou?"   
  
"Yeah. I'm Kongou."   
  
"Wonderful. Don't tell me you're in love with me too, and I managed to piss you off in your life, so now you want to kill me?"   
  
Kongou shot Inuyasha a weird look. She obviously didn't like him very much. "No, you idiot. You're a man. I'm in love with Kagome."   
  
"WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!" Inuyasha stood up abruptly, anger and shock on his face.   
  
"I'm not a girl. I simply like to wear girl's clothes. Kagome has this yukata. It makes me feel closer to her when I wear it," Kongou said camly. "Despite what you may want to believe, I have no problem with simply killing you here and now, and freeing poor Kagome from the responsibilities and trouble you're bringing to her life."   
  
"Then why don't you kill me? Scared that I'm gonna kick you scrawny girly ass?"   
  
"Because that would hurt Kagome. And unlike you and that corpse you pretend to be in love with, I would rather see the person I'm in love with happy than with me." Kongou glared at Inuyasha. "I'm here to remind you that Kikyou represents death and hell, the hell she made for herself, and Kagome represents life and heaven, the heaven she's willing to make for you. Not for me, but for you, you who doesn't even care enough to stop protecting the Bitch Priestess." His voice cracked on the last sentence.   
  
Inuyasha was silent. "So are you telling me that even after all Kikyou put herself through, I should just let her die?"   
  
Kongou laughed. It was not a sound born of one that is happy, but of one that sees Divine Comedy, and thinks it is painfully ironical.   
  
"Bastard...what the hell are you laughing about?" Inuyasha scowled.   
  
"Your statment...'all that Kikyou put herself through'. Inuyasha, do you know that I am a unique incarnation? I alone can visit the previous and past that my soul has lived through. I help them. I try to assist them in forming their hearts. Kikyou was, and is, one of my few failures. Do you know why she died, in all honesty? She was not the pure, perfect miko that everybody believed her to be." Kongou's face tightened. "Want to know what she was, and is? A koshinuke."   
  
"What do you know, anyhow, crossdresser!?"   
  
Kongou laughed again. "I can see into her heart, the same way I can see into Kagome's. Her thoughts are an open book to me. You know, of course, that Kikyou was charged with the awesome responsibility of protecting and purifing the Shikon no Tama, and that her powers began to subside as her thoughts shifted from the jewel to you. As she fell in love with you. She knew, after sealing you with that arrow, that she would have to face the taji-ya villagers that had given her the jewel in the first place. She knew that she would have to admit that she made a mistake in falling in love with you, and for being willing to give the jewel over to you, and therefore making it disappear and fulfilling her one true wish: to be free. Free to hate and love as she pleased, to not be simply a puppet that is forced to purify and protect."   
  
Inuyasha closed his eyes, trying to block out the sound of Kongou's horrible revalations. But still, the man continued, anger radiating on his face.   
  
"As she died, I looked into her heart. If she had truly wanted to live, to repent for the sins she had committed in almost losing possesion of the jewel, Naraku's plans would have failed. She would again be a true miko, as Kagome is in heart.   
  
"But she was unwilling to face the world. To admit that she had not been as strong as she should have been. So she let herself die, with the twin excuses that she was beyond healing, and that she wanted to be with you. Kikyou was so cowardly that she refused to accept what I was telling her, that she needed to live to repay, to correct her errors.   
  
"When she gave the jewel to Naraku, after stealing it from Kagome, do you know what her thoughts were? 'I feel freer now, that I can hate.' Kikyou wanted you to be human because she was in love with you, though perhaps not a true love...I believe the term is "puppy love", and it fits rather well here, don't you think? Anyway, and because the absence of the jewel would make her able to hate. To fear."   
  
"I refuse to accept that," Inuyasha said quietly. "I knew Kikyou. Better than you could, you slimy bastard, for all your talk of being able to see into her heart. How can you explain her wanting to live now?!"   
  
"Kikyou wishes to stay alive so that she can kill you, Kagome, and Naraku. She takes delight and pleasure in the facts that she can hate, and kill without remorse. She feels no sorrow for the souls of those she has taken to keep her in a semblence of life."   
  
"What you said earlier, that Kagome is the true miko in her heart...what did you mean?" Inuyasha asked, confused and trying to keep the startling revalations about Kikyou from his mind.   
  
"The true measure of a priestess is not their powers of holy spells and purification, but the willingness in their hearts to help others. To not be blinded by hatred for others. Kagome knows no real hate. It's part of why I love her," Kongou said placidly.   
  
"There's where you're wrong, bastard," Inuyasha said coldly. "Kagome hates Naraku."   
  
"Ah-ah-ah," Kongou wiggled his finger like a mother scolding a child. "See, it's not the kind of hate, like what Kikyou feels for you, what Naraku feels for you. Yes, she hates Naraku, and she'd kill him if she had the chance...but her hatred is not consuming. It does not drown out all of her other emotions, correct?"   
  
Eyes still closed, Inuyasha tried to continue the debate with the kitsune-like man. "How can Kikyou be such a powerful priestess, then? Don't you, Kagome, and Kikyou all share the same soul?"   
  
"I have an answer for that, too. During several points in a person's life, they are confronted by a spirit that asks them to make a choice. For example, Kagome could have chosen to sacrifice some of her love for Kikyou's power. She chose to be who she is. I was the one who asked her all of her questions thus far. And a soul is like a body. You use it to stay alive, and you form it and shape it the way you wish. So that is why, though Kagome and Kikyou share a soul, they are so different."   
  
Inuyasha finally opened his eyes. "You're a tricky son of a bitch, you know that?"   
  
"Eh?" It was Kongou's turn to be confused. "What do you mean?"   
  
"I love Kagome. I have for a long time; and you've made me realize this."   
  
"What about Kikyou?"   
  
Inuyasha sighed. "I always knew, I think, that she wasn't what she appeared to be...that I really didn't love her. But...I do owe her this. I don't want to be the one to kill her."   
  
Kongou regarded his rival in love. "Fine. I'll let you go now; Kagome should be returning from her era soon. Sayonara."   
  
"Ja ne, crossdresser." Inuyasha stood up, the headed for a door opening in thin air.   
  
"Wait, Inuyasha," Inuyasha turned to see Kongou clenching his hands tightly into fists. He had a strange look on his face...the look of one who knows that they have just let something priceless slip through his fingers, knowing full well they could have prevented it. But it was an act of love. Kongou loved Kagome so much, he was willing to let Inuyasha, whom he hated for several reasons, be with Kagome and not him. Inuyasha wondered if he would have the strength to be so forgiving if Kagome ever fell in love with somebody else.   
  
"You know I harbor no love for you, though I realize that you - and only you - are the correct match for Kagome. I won't intervene in that." he paused. "But make no mistake, Inuyasha. If you EVER do ANYTHING to hurt her...I will kill you with my bare hands. And I will take Kagome for myself. Got it?"   
  
"Wakatta. I won't hurt her."   
  
"Your track record says otherwise. Remember all I have told you the next time you are tempted by Kikyou. Take care of Kagome. Protect her always."   
  
"You know I will."   
  
"Yes...Inuyasha, as a note to your comment. You might very well find yourself in the position that you must chose Kagome over Kikyou and kill Kikyou yourself. If you do, do not run from it. You might not be charged with the responsibility of killing her, but then again you might. Prepare yourself."   
  
And with that, Inuyasha was thrust out of Kongou's world.   
  
A wiser man, he had learned from an awsome deity who he would likely meet again. Kongou, the reincarnation of a twisted miko...the previous incarnation of of a pure girl.   
  
Capable of loving, capable of hating. He can see into the hearts of those whose soul he shares.   
  
But is he truly what he believes to be? A helper...or is he unconsiously manuvering Inuyasha-tachi into Naraku's plans...?   
  
You decide, for the choices you make are yours - and yours alone.   
  
~*~*~*~   
  
authors' notes   
  
Firstly, this fiction was written at midnight by two people that were, quite possibly, drunk   
on Pepsi. If it's possible to be drunk on Pepsi.   
  
Secondly, there's a few things you need to know:   
  
1. Kongou has several meanings, but the one intended here is 'mixture'. Get the pun?   
  
2. Koshinuke is one of the many words for 'coward'. I chose this one because it is simplest.   
  
And finally, keep in mind that this is less of a fanfiction than it is an essay of opinions. I   
happen to think that Kikyou is a coward. Koshinuke. Relina happens to agree with me. I'm   
betting anything that this will be a very unpopular story, because Kikyou is rather popular,   
despite what her actions imply about her true personality. Also...fluff. Yes.   
  
Ja ne, minna-chan!   
  
-Katra and Relina 


End file.
